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A MOONSHINE MELODY 



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By jo M. KENDALL 

Former M. C. (Ky.) 









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You seize the victim, the kiss is shed; 
John felt on his cheek the veriest feather 
E'er flung from wild' pigeon on mountain heather. 



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MEDUSA 



A MOONSHINE MELODY 




By jo M. KENDALL 

Former M. C. (Ky.) 




For kisses are like poppies spread, 

You seize the victim, the kiss is shed; 

John felt on his cheek the veriest feather 

E'er flung from wild pigeon on mountain heather. 

''My foot is on my native heath, and my name is 



li'T n ffinf/3 n nif^ " 



E>^7. T>r.r,, 




Copyrig^iited 1920 

By Jo M. Kl.NDALL 



JAN -8 1920 



©Cl.A55ua37 



ROBERTS PRINTING CO. 
FRANKFORT. KY, 




She was a child of the forest and drew her looks 
Prom laurel leaves and babbling brocks. 
In all his travels he saw no such clothes 
For in pure white she was the heart o' a rose. 



MEDUSA 

A MOONSHINE MELODY 



A MOUNTAIN EPITAPH. 

A true story of a Wonderful Woman, Moonshine 
and War. A rare bit of sentiment and a gem of pur- 
est ray serene. 

Medusa sold Moonshine 'til iier time was spent, 
Then she kicked up her heels and away she^went. 

She suffered little and when she was dead 
They found a gallon hid beneath her bed. 

Neath the shadows of Big Black mountain she rests 

quiet and cool, 
Not far removed from the Pine INIountain Settlement 

School, 

AVhile just over the rid'ze at the Wolf's Three Fork 
Lives the tinest World Warrior, Sergeant Alvin 
York ; 

Since that war is won and he's back home "Ouch" 
Has turned his attention to the nuptial couch. 

The Governor of Tennessee performed the service gay 
And Alvin went ahead, there was nothing to pay. 

The Governor enjoyed it, he just lounged 'round, 
The thousands assembled sat and ate on the ground. 

They looked at Alvin and wondered why 

His step was so light and his look was so high. 

The bride blushed crimson in becoming gown. 
The sweetest thing Alvin had ever yet found; 



6 MEDUSA 

A captivating maid in both manner and dress 
With a total lack of self-consciousness. 

The Governor said that the beauties of France 
Had not won from Alvin one admiring glance, 

But that brave and loyal as he would ever be 
He found the fairest flow^er in sunny TennOsee. 

I witnessed the ceremony from far up in a tree. 
If I told all I saw Alvin might shoot me ; 

The Governor in sympathy would pardon York 
And commend his shot as right good sport. 

It gives me infinite pleasure to blow York's horn 
For he, like Sandlin and McCoy, is a K'y'n born. 

A Kentuckian once remarked, one with a mental 

dome. 
Other States led Ky. under K'y'ns who failed at 

home. 

The Blue Grass and State Fairs paid and did well 
Thru the patronage of the engaging John Shell, 

With his 137 years, and a conscience like a girl, 
Is reputed the oldest young man in the world; 

The press and science with discussion was torn 
Since no one remembered the day Shell was born. 

He protested vehement with the wisdom of a sage 
That the wrinkles on a horn are no criterion of age, 

Then he took the position that he would far rather 
Be esteemed years younger than to bother his father. 

A typical mountain family numbering eleven, 
The youngest a bright boy age only seven; 

This bright boy should have been a fine girl 
And showed for the best thing w^e beat the world. 



MEDUSA 



7 



Shell capped the climax on Fair day the third 
When he arose in the air and flew like a bird, 
Which suggested to a bunch of Revenue old liners 
That Shelf in an airplane could capture Moon- 



shiners ; 



When he ca.ne back and lit he was ready to die 
Since he'd witnessed by man the conquest of the sky. 
While Sandlin the Soldier with pure main strength 
To eradicate iUiteracy went his full length; 
This highland eagle, without learning or dollars. 
Did more for literacy than all our erudite scholar. 
While down in Louisville, entranced, the ^-ery elite 
With the exploits of Black Hawk and Pistol Pete, 
Their loose talk about bold, bad Breathitt is pure 

They break the monotony shooting both Attorney 

and Judge. 
Medusa was wise and was heard to declare 
"The farther from the Court House the safer you 

are." 
But back to Medusa for you have had enough 
Diversified, mutilated, Moonshine stuff, 

It is my purpose so long as I sing 

To give to my audience the very pure thmg. 

The March wind blew loud, hard and rough, 

Altho a full gallon it was hardly enough. 

She sold for vears all sorts of booze. 

Yet was too darn sly for the Revenoos. 

Tho oft compelled to jew and dicker, 

She neither sold nor served any potash hcker, 



8 MEDUSA 

She sold to all nor turned her back 
Nor had recourse to the Tiger's clack; 

She stayed at home and had such art 
She never acted the bootlegger's part. 

The stranger knew both far and wide 
That her latch-string hung on the outside. 

The gallant Cavalier, the Kentucky Troubadour, 
Spurred to reach at sunset her little cottage door ; 

He came adorned with jockey hat and feather 
And Medusa and Cavalier looked well together. 

He was entertained for a single night 

In her spare room, fresh, virginal and white. 

Where he dreamed of Medusa, so neat and light, 
Like a big white dove poised for flight : 

For she had the gift, a gift o' sense. 
Of looking smart at a small expense. 

In all his travels he saw no such clothes 
For in pure white she was the heart o' a rose. 

He vowed in earnest as sure as she was born 
That when adorned the least she did most adorn ; 

And yet she knew that fine feathers did 
Enhance the charms they draped and hid. 

That man's heart beat faster and blood congealed 
When clothes displayed what clothes concealed. 

That in love's trial the verdict or election 
Went not to fair face or form but to suggestion ; 

In the thing called ''charm" the grace most fine 
Lay vaguely concealed in the Serpentine. 

The Cavalier would oft remark with hilarious glee 
That her dress was a dream and her hat was a snree. 



MEDUSA 1^ 

Fun might be had he explained with thou, 

A cake and a jug underneath a bough; 

That the Bird of Time is a fleeting fellow, 

That fruits should be tasted when ripe and mellow. 

Then he ventured words of endearment dear 

Which chaste INIedusa would not hear. 

His one resolve the whole year round 

Was never to turn a good thing down. 

Above all others she had the gift to please 

Doing a difflcult thing with contemptible ease. 

She once remarked, 'T'm like the Turk. 

I think continually but I never work.' 

We trusted her and she trusted us 

And no one ever started anything. 

When Medusa spoke we had no choice, 

She ruled the rudest without raising her voice. 

Her sire before her ere she was born 

Had toted to the grist his sprouted corn, 

His grandsire had quit the Scotch hills under ban 

To escape the vigilance of the hated excise mar. : 

And hoped in Kentucky, free and new 

To brew unmolested his Mountain Dew. 

On the roll of Scotch excise appears in turns 

The illustrious name of brigM Bobby Burns, 

Whose wild dissipation and a to5 generous giving 

Was forced to chase 'Shiners to earn a precarious 

living. 
On the subject of Suffrage she was no bluffer 
But believed that women like men ought to suffer, 
But that for the Garden of Eden episode 
We might have less fun but be perfectly good; 



12 MEDUSA 

That fashion and folly had united to bruit, 

The foliage is now more important than the fruit, 

That but for Temptation, in Medusa's fair eyes, 
Virtue would die for the want of exercise, 

That rather than pray to be delivered from the devil 
Better meet Temptation half wa}^ and subdue the 
evil. 

She divined that, not to protest, too insistent, 
Satan was never so perverse, persevering and per- 
sistent. 

She opposed Prohibition, she thought it not best, 
To put long-green for comfort and the grave for rest. 

A prohibitionist flew into Medusa's l)ack yard 
And talked and talked 'til his voice got hard. 

He talked and talked and his eyes did swell. 

He won't utter another word 'till his throat gets well. 

Medusa observed that barring an occasional deten- 
tion 

It left the Mountains and Chicago without competi- 
tion. 

Sprung from a race of warriors all, 
She loved to list to the clan's clear call. 

To watch the Gathering of son and sire 
When flew the Signal, the Cross of Fire. 

A preacher's daughter, she cherished his diction, 
But believed Moonshine a not unmixed affliction. 

A very bright woman at the very top notch. 
She used no such words as ^^youens" and ^^fotch," 

With broad smile and humor she alluded to it. 
Author Cox said, "You know," Preacher Jo Call said 
"Hit." 



MEDUSA 13 

Cox drew a picture of mountain character fine, 
Call garnished his sermons with potations of Moon- 
shine, 

Comparisons are odious but the truth of the fact is 
Call stuck closer to his text than Cox did to his. 

Better be a bullfrog and bellow^ on the banks of Big 

Sandy 
Than pollute the sacred truth with indifferent apple 

brandy. 

She held in calibre of very small 'size 

Those who do, what Woodrow dare not, patronize. 

This speech stamped Woodrow^ in Medusa's mind 
As a matchless Thinker, the Man of all Time. 

That those who write us up are like the daw. 
Visiting the streets of Green, Megowan and Craw, 

That the base of Mountain Fiction is not sound 
Nor their observations either wise or profound ; 

That in highland romance the reader's elation 
Arose not from fixed fact but exaggeration, 

That they left the feeling, at least to one. 
Of a rather nice thing completely overdone. 

The Mountains only ask from the literary hummer, 
Justice, for wdiich every place is a temple, all seasons 
summer. 

Tho an outlying province and rude in their ways 
They furnished two Governors in about 90 days, 

Who with ]\Ienefee, Elliott and others, each a silver 

tongue, 
Furnish an enduring memorial when her praises are 

suns. 



14 MEDUSA 

Of Mountaineers whose fame will outlast granite 
The greatest are those who were the hills incarnate, 

They, too, loved the hills, sun, scenic and air 
And proudest of one thing, that they mountaineers 
were. 

She esteemed as soft, deluded and visionary 
Those who thought we needed a Mountain Mis- 
sionary, 

That the samples sent impelled her to reason 
Not to be a Christian but remain a heathen. 

That in her opinion the community little got 
From a wandering banjo-picker or a sanctified sot, 

A student of human nature she discovered quick 
Whether he was really religious or only sick. 

On her way from church she hummed the 5tli 

Noctrin 
And praised the efficacy of the Hard-shell doctrin. 

That these new easy routes to the Heavenly station 
Might strain but not break her Plan of Salvation. 

In most of these schemes to escape the wages of sin 
The sinner came out of the same hole that he went in. 

Her father was bright, she called him ''Honey" 
But wished he loved learning less and had more 
money, 

She admitted reluctant there are things better than 
money 

Among them maple syrup and a sort of saved, wild 
honey. 

She held in contempt those who to win fame 
Give to a modest little flower a great big name, 



MEDUSA 15 

She argued that custom settled the point 

That a big name put a httle flower out o' joint. 

Her Enghsh was chaste, to her rocks were rocks, 
She was not equaled even by the noted John Cox. 

She detested hot buscuit and when left alone 
She rigidly adhered to the old corn pone, 

And esteemed the best diet for muscle, nerve and 

head 
In hog-killin' time to be the rich cracklin' bread; 

But beaten buscuit were not rank secession 

AVhen emploj^ed exclusively as a Sabbath concession, 

That a razor-back hog ham when properly basted 
Is the sweetest meat mortal man ever smelt or tasted, 

Tho in sweet summer she despised the litter 
Ben had to bend to the old tin gritter. 

She worked and schemed of her own volition 
For exercise kept her in fine condition. 

She banished dark thoughts and said the finicky 
In fluctuating fields finally found felicity. 

In health she held that there should be reserves 
For Moonshine is a delicious relaxation for nerves, 

That to be unemployed always made her dizzy 
The wise thing worth while is keeping busy. 

She vowed that biography showed an appetite burning 
In most briglit men for liberty, licker and learning. 

AVhen she ventured an opinion her quiet, easy dic- 
tion 
Showed her to be in touch with the best late fiction. 

Her Speech, like silver, sparkled and glistened. 
The Cardinal hopped nearer, held his breath, and 
listened. 



16 MEDUSA 

To me who beard her, I can't tell how, 
I felt like a bird on a boundin,i>; bough. 

Like the Divine Sarah, tho far more young, 
She wielded a soft, sharp, silver tongue, 

Who knew her gifts were at a loss to tell 
Why she spoke so little' who talked so well. 

For the Kentucky Orator, the less he know^. 
The louder he hollers and the more he blows. 

Our wise and great with tongue and pen 
Have been mild-mannered, modest men. 

She said the Mountains in their sorest need 
Found their best old stock had gone to seed ; 

Her reason for this, she was impelled to utter, 
Was because they were raised on thin white butter. 

She said that if able she'd act a great part 
And dedicate her life completely to art; 

She reverenced the past and took the ground 
There were more arts lost than had been found. 

That in her eyes the finest dope 
Is to give to another a ray of hope, 

Then she would quietly add with a laugh 
Those who do not must stand the gaff* 

In spite of her calling in all the State 
Lived few less subtle and intuitively great. 

She loved the hills, their simple cheer. 
Nor ever cared to rove elsewhere. 

She showed good sense and thought it fine 
To live her own life far off the main line. 

Tho far removed from road, school and steeple 
She preferred to dwell among her own people. 



MEDUSA 17 

In this position she was more than mere human 
And unconsciously resembled the Shunamite 
Woman. 

Tho filled with high thoughts of fashion and ad- 
vance 
She had been caught in the trap of circumstance, 

Tho wine, want and woe turned her heart to stone 
She only asked to be let alone. 

A child of the forest, she drew her looks 
From laurel leaves and babbling brooks. 

She mixed with men and tho Temptation tossed 
She drew a straight line none ever crossed; 

She never in life, not even perchance, 
Talked Tom-fool nonsense nor took a chance. 

Her eyes were dark, her complexion like lard. 
Her mouth was little and her conscience hard. 

She was a woman of parts and knew her duty 
Was not to traffic on her youth and beauty. 

That the truly great love to the average human 
Came to some not at all and but once to a woman. 

That studying one's self is an important feature 
But that the other fellow is far the best teacher, 

That misfortune will come but it is a fact 
You're all right if your conscience is intact. 

It is not fair in love or an election 
To use soft soap or traffic in affection, 

A clear conscience alone gives true thrills 
And brings joy coming right over the hills ; 

They pay the fiddler who choose to dance. 
It isn't every one gets a second chance, 



IS MEDUSA 

That never in life had her invention 
Entertained for a moment a j^ly intention. 

That those who do are les:? wise than kind 
And invariably possess a mean little mind, 

In all bnsiness be brief and brisk 
Tell the truth and take no risk. 

The trnth will live without exemption 
A lie put- a person past redemption, 

One thing should be taught to every eirl 
That the truth alone can fool the world, 

To explain this riddle might take a day 

T ike ''from him who has not it shall be taken iway ;" 

A^^hile ''to those who have," it makes us sore, 
The promise is that they shall get more, 

T^o come t') the point I will simply say 
Truth lives eternal and a lie don't pay. 

This conclusion may cause a sly one to siqh 
The wi-e will take heed and never live a lie. 

That to be happy the wise man must 
Tc^ke what he gets in faith and trust. 

A Moonshine Woman thru and thru, 
^^he saved the life of a Revenoo, 

And led him safe thru pass and ward 
Far past Clan-Cumberland's outmost guard. 

She led him safe thru glen and brae 

To where the Moonshiner dare not stray, 

And tho it took her a night and a day 
She obstinately refused to accept any pay; 

And only asked for her own clan 
He'd do the like for a banished man. 



MEDUSA 21 

For her husljand Ben, in durance vile 
In a Federal jail, was a forced exile. 

She fondly hoped that to ease her heart's burn 
He would open the path to his happy return. 

For like a cashed hawk she knew that Ben 

From an eagle to a buzzard would turn in the jjen. 

That for her ennui Ben was a sure ciire, 
He was as sure as ?^low and as slow as sure ; 

To him she felt quite awfully grateful 
That he was as stupid as he was faithful. 

During all her life, tho provoked perchance, 

Ben liad not an ugly word nor an unwifely glance, 

That after Ben had gone and left her 

She strolled thro the glade, a sad-eyed heifer. 

That while he was in no wise distinguished 

AVhen he left the light of her life was extinguished, 

That for consolation, the best at that, 
Was to read, con and ponder her Rubiayat. 

She owed more to this one thin book of Omar 
Than to all the voluminous volumes of Homer. 

She took scant stock in Omar's rhyme 
About drinking wine and killing time. 

That in literature a priceless dower 

''Is to wear learning lightly like a flower." 

To wander on the hills and take a look at 
What she loved, the red leaves of the sumach. 

But sad to relate the Revenue man, alas ! 
Forgot the woman who had passed him past, 

He drank her booze and went his way 
And Ben had to serve to his last day. 



22 MEDUSA 

Swift retribution came to Donald Dhu, 
The very next raid he never got thru, 

The Chiefs that day in force at noon 
Had marshalled on the braes of Coon. 

Medusa told them of Donald Dhu, 
Of how the path she'd led him thru, 

Then she told what was known to a few 
Of what Donald promised and didn't do. 

So quiet and cool and yet even the stranger 
Knew that masked look meant imminent danger, 

The vote was taken, the die was cast 
And Donald Dhu had lived his last. 

Her low voice died on the wind like a lyre 

When away from the heath sped the Cross of Fire, 

From hill and mountain far and near 

The Clan's shrill Gathering could Medusa hear. 

From Dexdl's creek, Cutshin and Roarin' Fork 
The 'Shiners were '^up" for bloody work. 

Each hill and vale was rampant rife 

With long-haired warriors armed for strife; 

And mingling above both peak and stream 
Was heard the boding eagle scream, 

From crag to crag the Signal flew 
No rest the Cumberland echoes knew. 

Watch-fires gleamed, fox-horns blew 
And what would happen. Medusa knew. 

The Mountaineer ne'er in battle stood 
But first his rifle tasted blood. 

No mountain people in civil or martial jar 
Were ever bought in peace or whipt in war. 



MEDUSA 23 

Down in a dark, sequestered dell 
The ]\Iarshal bravely fought and fell, 

And still the Donald banner flew 
While his red blood did blot the dew; 

It seemed that all the fiends of hell 
Mad mustered in that lonely dell. 

The posse sensed unequal fight 

And eased the game b}^ precipitate flight, 

They deemed them'«;elves both happy and lucky 
To escape from the hottest spot in all Kentucky. 

The nio'ht hawk screamed and back from the hill 
Came the lonesome call of the whip'or'will, 

And silence settled like a fog on a rill 

Thru which curled the smoke of a Moonshine Still. 



Future ages will wonder when they courage seek 
How Kentucky met Kentucky and Greek met Greek, 

In tradition and legend the whole world round 
She is famed as the Dark and Bloody Ground. 

Thru all this commotion, quake and qualm 
^ledusa was quiet and amazingly calm, 

^Vhen the sun cleared the fog out from the gloom 
Emerged Ben's sardonic face and conquering eagle 
plume. 

The great, gray rocks echoed a free, wild yell 
That died in the dingle where the dauntless Donald 
fell. 

They buried him there and the complaining brook 
Bore his sad story to the land he forsook, 

No flower o' affection was cast on his grave 
But above the tall poplar did proudly wave. 



24 MEDUSA 

Medusa smiled for she did not care 
For a man who forgot a favor rare, 

She remarked in tone cool, quiet and sharp 
That Donald had left and gone after his harp. 

The tale is told in mountain song- 
How Clan-Curfiberland righted a wrong. 

In the Woods o' Wrath there is no such fire 
As vengance kindling mountain ire. 

His comrades came from a far-off town 

And took him away from the mountains brown, 

Whose tawny colors and falling leaf 
Gave added pathos to this epic o' grief. 

They crossed the turgid Cumberland river 
As rich in romance as the Gaudelquiver, 

And then the Kentucky, like unto the Doon, 
To where rest the ashes of back-woodsman Boon. 

And told wild stories fresh from the border 
How a hero died for law^ and order, 

And vow^ed that on another day 
Clan-Cumberland would have to pay, 

Of rumored raids and civil jar 

That presaged the dawn of mountain war; 

That a whirlwind would sweep the moonshine swarm 
And put their leaders where they could do no harm. 

John Cox wrote the story with a pen, not a sword, 
While Medusa filled for him her small, slim gourd, 

And blushed as she fetched it, looking down. 
Which made John forget he w^as due in town ; 



MEDUSA 25 

John thanked her so warmly she looked askance 
And John went off in a Moonshine trance, 

John had gone off in this same trance 

When Ben played and Medusa danced. 

* 

Widely cultured in music John was forced to con- 
clude, 

That the Moonshine Minstrel beat the Blue Grass 
Dude, 

For the Moonshiner can play to beat the band 
When the licker's in the head and the bow's in the 
hand; 

John regarded Ben as a social carbuncle, 
Men with merry wives call everybody "Uncle," 

John counted it a new commandment of life 

If you can't love your neighbor then love his wife. 

I-Ie told her in words, admiring and bold, 
She didn't look a day over fourteen years old. 

He viewed her fine, commanding carriage 

And wished there was no such thing as marriage; 

She treated John and his declension 

With a manner of faintly amused condescension. 

John could not talk, he could only stammer, 
The too faithful victim of Medusa's glamour, 

John's thoughts were as pure as mountain dew 
He loved like the devil and his words were few. 

She was puzzled to conjecture if in her eyes 
Lurked invitation to masculine enterprise. 

She proposed to John with a merry laugh 
To guide his feet along the hoe-down path, 



26 MEDUSA 

She spoke of the fact that John in amene accordance 
Opened the dance with her, the lady of first import- 
ance ; 

She secretly divined that John in these little vanities 
Songht to assimilate her hitherto unsuspected mys- 
teries. 

That there is no such thrill a woman feels 
When lads and lassies crack their heels, 

That she would rather hear than dine 
'TJop tight ladies and tip toe fine"; 

And above the laughin' and dancin' Ben's clear call 
'^Swing your partner and balance all." 

That time would never to her forgetfulness bring- 
How he executed the crow-hop and cut the pigeon- 
wing, 

That Ben's '^Chicken in the bread tray, hop, hop, 

hop," 
Was as sweet as any music, even ''pop, pop, pop.'^ 

That of all the dances she would always feel 
She personally preferred the Old Virginia Reel, 

That on occasion she could never forget 
The attention, something distinguished, in the 
Minuet. 

She ventured an opinion that these must not 
Give way to the Bunny Hug and Turkey Trot, 



She explained that a woman in her situation 
Must naturally be opposed to all innovation 



J 



She complained next day that she was ''all in,' 
That dancing was her one besetting sin. 




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MEDUSA 29 

John's mind suddenly filled with a vision rank 
When he recalled he was overdrawn at the bank ; 

But had not Ben come suddenly back 

Blue Grass and Rhodo might have mingled, alack, 

And Ben might have learned to his great grief 
That opportunity and absence make the thief. 

For of all the sad words of tongue or pen 

To John, not Medusa, was "The Return of Ben"; 

For Ben was a Don Juan as well as John 
And sensed he'd lost something by being gone. 

For kisses are like poppies spread. 
You seize the victim, the kiss is shed; 

John felt on his cheek the veriest feather 

F'er flung from wild pigeon on mountain heather. 

When Ben came John went, well, 
All was as merry as a marriage bell. 

Medusa was wi-e and did simply say 

That John's stories gave her a headache gray, 

From the ranks who admired him she would step out 
of line. 

That compared to a classic they were diluted Moon- 
shine ; 

He employed so many words in such a solemn man- 
ner. 

To drive the point in would require a sledge ham- 
mer. 

It takes ten pounds of common sense 

To put a pound of learning over the fence. 

Then she boldly declared that John was a prig. 
Not natural, like the curl in the tail of a peach 
orchard pig, 



30 MEDUSA 

That he had fame but even at that 

He was Httle more than a cat-fish artistocrat; 

That a mixed blooded people are naturally inferior, 
That a pure blooded Mountaineer never saw a 
superior. 

She was not a fool and did not want it to appear 
That John or anybody else was running after her, 

No scandal for her, she liked garden sass, 
For her grass widows might all go to grass. 

She admitted, blushing to Ben and his friend Dan, 
That John was a devil of a honey-tongued man ; 

That his manners w^ere easy, his voice so suave, 
His funniest stories made her feel quite grave. 

That he was famous she was dumbfounded. 

Of such illusions are fame and glory compounded. 

That John had the gift, the gift of seeing, 

Of treating a mountain woman like a human being. 

Then she sighed and added "I never can 
Love anybody else but a mountain man." 

Then Ben put the question to Medusa, sighing, 
'^When a hen cackles is she laying or lying?" 

Medusa suggested it would probably be best 
The owner of the hen might examine her nest. 

Then Ben hummed a tune sung thereabout, 
''Every Time He Called Her Little Lamp Went Out." 

Medusa shook her head and saith 

''The deepest lines are carved by lack o' faith," 

Then she added "They say in the South 
No one has a good name in a bad mouth." 



MEDUSA 31 

Not for a million would she have her patron 
Consider her a free and easy matron, 

That John occupied too high a station 

To yield to anything, much less Temptation ; 

That culture and pride impelled him to laugh 
At the idea of pursuing the promrise path, 

That those who persist in following such bent 

Are consigned to the place where Ward's Ducks went, 

Than to do such a thing one had far better be 
With the gentleman named McGinty at the bottom 
o' the sea. 

Then she lifted up her clear cut chin 

And gazed straight in the eyes of the sarcastic Ben, 

''Since I have been a woman grown 
What's never known is best unknown." 

And then she spoke with a tear in her eye, 
''How quick love goes once it begins to die;" 

"Those who the joys of love have known 
Pine with regret when they are gone." 

Then she looked at her little wedding ring 
That glistened like a tear to burn and sting, 

"A man should think ere he struck the hand 
That led him to such a rare and wondrous land" 

That love is a flower, neglected it goes, 
But tended it buds and blooms like a rose. 

She added that Ben was quite a dear 
If he didn't sometimes act so queer. 

Then she suggested it was useless to wrangle 
Over what John Cox called The Eternal Triangle. 



32 MEDUSA 

And then she muttered "In conversation 

A sliut mouth is worth an hour's explanation," 

That of all people she would rather be one such 
Who makes poor rhymes than talk too much. 

This quiet remark without affectation 
Relieved the strain and saved the situation. 

John and Medusa couldn't help but show it 
And, as usual, Ben was the last man to know it. 

Then she shyly tickled Ben under the chin, 
The rafters rano; with an awful din. 

And the passer heard the loud clear hiss 
Of what must have been a scorching kiss. 

The Court crowd smiled that afternoon 
Observing that John was out o' tune, 

His Honor remarked from his place on the Bench 
That the B|uck had been stalked by a Moonshine 
Wench. 

John thought of the Harpers proud and cold. 
Of the Mountain Landlord who wanted gold, 

So closing his heart John wrote on 
And Medusa was left with Ben alone. 

The landlord heard John jeer and laugh 

To think he'd been caught by mountain riff' raff, 

That he, an author bright and sharp, 
Should fall for the wife of a local harp; 

And forget his calling, which was his duty. 
To bow at the shrine of a sylvan beauty. 

With eyes full of sunbeams and sinuous ease 
When she hardly knew even her A B C's. 



MEDUSA 33 

He raged and swore and cursed his luck 
And felt he wasn't knee high to a duck, 

And hied him away from glen and brae 
To where more peaceful waters stray. 

John looked back when he reached the station 
And vowed that the Mountains beat the Nation. 

He confided to his chum that he was only human 
That he never met anything like this Mountain 
Woman, 

That never had he, since the sun for Iiim had risen, 
Pressed lip so sweet or held daintier hand in his'en. 

Good gracious ! how John's heart did burn, 
When she held his'n and he held her'n. 

The hearer doubted, he hadn't been there 
He'd like to go but he did'nt care. 

John said to the agent, and his words did burn, 
^'Tell Medusa I go but I return," 

Then he added, as he mended his gait, 
"I've got to go, I can not wait." 

Which caused the agent to quietly lauo'li, 
Mistaking John for a backwoods. Moonshine calf. 

John sat in the smoker and hummed as before 

"I Beheve In My Soul That I'd Wander No More," 

A Mountain folk song of wild disorder 

To the tune of Blue Bonnets O'er the Border; 

Sung ages ago by that old Scot Ghlu Dune 
Now known in Kentucky as a Lonesome Tune. 

He muttered aloud, the smoke did curl, 
''This Mountain Woman is sure some girl," 



34 MEDUSA 

In all creation they beat the devil, 
The hardest mystery to unravel. 

The gift is not vouchsafed to man 
The wish-bone woman to understand. 

The complex mysteries of the human heart 
Only a woman can appreciate, man lacks the art. 

The human heart from its interior 
Should always aspire to the superior. 

In human fiction is no more vivid tale 
Than that one of John, the thwarted male: 

John forgot the ^^poor whites" who live in a* rut 
In the land of the still, the home of the nut. 

On the tongue of tradition will be handed dow^n 
This exquisite story of Medusa and John, 

Of how John lingered and well nigh strayed 
With a Moonshine AVoman, not a Mountain Maid; 

With e^'CS like the sea and lips like wine 
As straight as a shingle or a Lonesome Pine. 

She knew that had she lost her heart in the strife 
Something sweet and precious would have left her 
life, 

That those who do tho outwardly calm 
Inwardly suffer the tortures of the damned. 

It may be true, all things that run are edible, 
But sin leaves a stain not apparent but indehble. 

Oft when alone would Medusa say 
^'I had a close call that unlucky day," 

Yet she schemed and fibbed as she was alJe, 
Rather than lay all her cards on the table. 




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MEDUSA 37 

She had that doubting, anxious, hesitating way 
That steals the unsophisticated man away; 

Tho in no way a Vampire, schemer or plotter, 
Men were like clay in the hands of the potter. 

She had after she became a woman grown 
No thirst for the knowledge that can never be 
known. 

On her fair face and form she set no price 
But stuck to business as more wise and nice. 

Stick to your business, sit on the lid tight, 
Eschew fashion and folly and you're all right. 

It is probably near the truth to say 
She liked both men in a different way, 

Or to put it plainer, to please the bon ton, 
That she loved Ben and admired John ; 

This statement may make the decorous start, 
She seems to have possessed a forked heart, 

She was like unto a Siamese dove, 

One fork Friendship, the other fork Love, 

I may explain to complete this song 
That each long prong was equally long. 

Ben finally concluded, it made him heart sick. 
That she was not fast but that she was quick; 

He only wished, as she was fresh and neat, 
That she was as slow as she was sweet. 

This is a story rarely told 

But Medusa's gone and John is old. 

John's account of this lone loon 

Will rival the battle o' Be Al An Duine', 



38 MEDUSA 

Wandering 'Shiners will stop and stray 
To list to this artless Moonshine Lay, 

And cluster about with ear and look intent 

To this sweet, sad story, The Moonshiner's Lament. 

A title first given where a jealous lass 
Conducted the Marshal thru this same pass, 

In dark midnight o'er rock and rill 
To where her lover watched his still, 

And stilled the watch with her wild ^'Halloo" 
While Marshal and prisoner passed silently thru ; 

And traveled far o'er hill and dale 

And lodged him safely in the Jackson jail, - 

Where he pined with love 'til his heart was rent 
And he wrote the immortal Moonshiner's Lament. 

Now heard in song, story, legend and dering do. 
On fiddle and banjo, from the head of Beaver to the 
Mouth 0' Canoe. 

She was a good woman and thru thick and thin 
She was always constant and true to Bin, 

But she is gone and let's make haste 
To find some one to take her place. 

Ben must look round when he finishes his nap 
For some old rip to help raise the crap. 

When things went by contraries she did not whine 
For she was anything but a bruised, weeping vine. 

The praises of Medusa would be inaptly sung 
That painted her a vine that clingingly clung. 

She discredited Cobb for his untimely satire, 
^'Oh well you know how the women are," 




Ben's occupation, his only wish, 
Is killin' squirrels and catchin' fish; 
He is one whom the community reject. 
Who prefers Moonshine to his self-respect. 



MEDUSA 41 

She surmised that Irvin was the one lone human 
Who had inadvertently loved the one wrong woman. 

That Mary Robert Rhinehart's defense of her sex 
Merely begged the question, serving only to vex. 

That the discussion to her mind peradventure 
Was fun for Irvin, for Mary quite an adventurej 

She could not fathom what Mary was about 
Suggesting frailties Irvin had unwittingly left out. 

Literary taste has grown woefully anemic 

Since the passion for mystery has become epidemic. 

Medusa's imagination took a wide range 
While Ben inclined to things less strange, 

There was this divergence in their mental gait 
Medusa traveled crooked while Ben went straioht; 

Or to use a figure borrowed from the hunters of Boon, 
Medusa circled like a 'possum, Ben straight like a 
coon. 

Yet when danger impended to avert disaster 
She covered more ground but traveled faster, 

Ben early discovered, while victrolling Carusi, 
That whatever he did he could not fool Medusa. 

The Wisdom of Solomon might not avail 
If Medusa had a chance to tell her tale, 

Ben said he felt little better than a brute 
When Medusa's statement he tried to confute. 

Ben was a great gamester and went a-kiting 

For fun, fascination, fiddling, fishing and fighting. 

A disciple of Sir Isaac he ranked first class. 
He considered a creek chub the best bait for black 
bass. 



42 MEDUSA 

Ben's occupation, his only wish, 
Is kilhn' squirrels and cathin' fish, 

And yet 'tis known among his kith 
Ben is a person not to be trifled with ; 

As lad and man he inclined to sin and strife 
And never did a day's work in his life. 

Ben is one whom the community reject, 
Who prefers ^loonshine to his self-respect. 

Thus it befell ere he knew what he was about 
That Ben's reputation had about petered out. 

He may be described as a sort of skibunk 

Who never knew whether he was completely drunk, 

For a month at a time he would refrain 
And his self-respect he would regain. 

Let no one turn from their heart's door 
This short, sad, sweet annal of the poor. 

She closed her eyes and went to rest. 
With long shadows falling to the West, 

And passed away in her little one room. 
Inhaling the fragrance of wild flower bloom ; 

Tho oft by the wiles of the Serpent beset 
She died without a single immoral regret, 

Her last words, spoken to her Spiritual Adviser Jo, 
Were "I'm all in, weep not for me, I'm ready to go." 

While those about her did wail and weep, 
Like a tired child at noon she fell asleep. 

Such recluses as she was to those who knew her are 
A thread o' pure gold hemming the raveled sleeve o' 
care. 



MEDUSA 43 

Let each one pray for the repose of her soul 
And refrain for a time from the flowin' bowl, 

'Til roses red and pansies pied 

Shall serve as a screen her grave to hide ; 

For violets blue and roses red 

Are dear alike to the quick and the dead. 

EPITAPH. 

The odor of dead roses still permeates the gloom 
Her memory abides and redolents her little one 

room ; 
The gay Cavilier is gone, his sword is rust, 
But her small deeds smell sweet and bloom in the 

dust. 

MORAL, 

The Moral of this story, keep it fixed like a star. 
Is that you can't mix Women, Moonshine and War; 
John w^rote to Medusa, his letter came from afar. 
You can have War without Women but not Women 
without War. 



4- 



AN EXPLANATION, AN APPRECIATION 
AND A CRITICISM 



Let me tell you the wonderful story of Medusa. 
In the shady mountains of Kentucky, near the head 
of the Cumberland river, a poor, young and not un- 
attractive mountain woman of unusual self-culture, 
with a no-account husband, souoht a separate peace 
and rest thru a terrible epidemic then ra^^ing like 
unto the Flu. The neighbors all had it, the two chil- 
dren had it, and ^ledusa was coughing her head off 
and all but. She finally had it, and in her death the 
community, her husband and children suffered an 
irreparable loss and thereby hangs a tale. 

To support her children and husband in his wild 
ways, of which there was not as usual a large num- 
ber, / mean children, she was forced to retail Moon- 
shine without a Government or State license to any 
and all who called at her humble cabin ; or rather 1 
should sa}^ that she sold the residuum that her hus- 
band left her from her meagre stock which was 
easily rejilenished for she Avas an honest woman and 
early won and long held the confidence, and I was 
about to say the esteem, of those who manufactured 
the illicit beverage. In plain parlance her credit was 
good. 

One of her regular customers, a rough man with 
a poetic nature and a kind heart, after she was dead 
and buried, scribbled on the blank leaves of an old 
log book and nailed on the rude slab neath which 
she slept these touching, informing lines, so true, so 
natural and so expressive. Altho evidently im- 
provised and unstudied, and I may say unpremedi- 



MEDUSA ^5 

tated for no one believed that she was going to die 
until' she had passed, the rythm seems perfect tho 
I am bound to admit that the metre is just a little 
bit faulty. At a few places even the casual reader 
will doubtless detect that the screw of the author's 
diction is loose and needs tightening. His is an in- 
tense personality and on first examining the manu- 
script I was struck and surprised to find a few paltry 
decorations and I observed in other places, not 
manv but a few, tawdry rhetoric, and that the 
narrative had almost unconsciously sunk into elo- 
quence, and what by courtesy might be called 
poetrv, tho I hardly think so. 

These homely phrases illustrate the truth and 
power of that classic maxim that the bravest aire 
the tenderest, that the loving wve the daring. I pre- 
dict tliat when he wrote this hasty, unaffected tribute 
to the most graceful, winning woman with the 
merriest eves into which he ever looked, that he 
builded wiser than he knew, in which respect he 
resembled Shakespeare, that Medusa will long stand 
as a model of that character of a new and compell- 
ino- hterature, a tender tribute voicing a personal 
losl of a Platonic love that altered not when it lost, 
expressed in words of rich yet sincere, severe sim- 
plicity. In a sentence I should not be at all sur- 
prised that this Melody, for the saving of the old 
fashion, will give a local habitation and a name to an 
out-of-the-way neighborhood, that it will be a hter- 
arv sensation recognized at once and long esteemed 
as\ sort of Raw Hide classic of the rough border 
variety, and take its proper place where it belongs 
side by side with Gray's Elegy In A Country Church- 
yard as a new, genuine masterpiece, the first and it 
may be the last, expressed in the primitive Saxon- 



46 MEDUSA 

English of the Appalachian Highlander. They are 
no longer the outlying Cumberlands. It is not an 
^^arrested" but a rested civilization I am picturing; 
a whole people emerging with larger wealth, wider 
opportunities for happiness, tranquility and honor- 
able and noble achievement. 

]\Iedusa is not expected to please those exclusive, 
conceited, self-sufficient egotists, political and literary 
amateurs, and artless fools who still entertain the 
heathen opinion that "No good thing can come out 
of Nazareth." Wise men and women know that the 
best thing came out of Bethlehem, a town then and 
now, it may be, less pretentious than Pineville wliere 
Medusa did occasional shopping. I mention this 
with hesitation and reverence and to give emphasis 
to a thought very dear to every intelligent Moun- 
taineer. Grant said that the reason Charles Sumner 
did not believe 'the Ten Commandments was because 
he did not write them himself. It gives me supreme 
satisfaction, a pride and pleasure that I can not put 
into words, to enlighten and to assure the public that 
the history of Medusa was written by a mountaineer 
of mountaineers — that it is a fresh egg from the nest 
of the eagle that has never known cold storage save 
that delay occasioned by the high cost of printing, 
tho more than one mountaineer, with characteristic 
and commendable generosity and delicate and grace- 
ful tact and courtesy, offered to bear the entire ex- 
pense of the publication ; an offer the almost morbid, 
traditional pride of the mountaineer promptly de- 
clined. From a stranger the proffer would have been 
taken as an insult. By a strange coincidence Medusa 
appears from the printers the very day Kentucky be- 
came as dry as the remainder biscuit. The classic is 
always contemporary. 



MEDUSA 47 

The Melody is about five times the length of 
the Elegy and nearly twice the length of the 
Rubaiyat to which it has been not inaptly likened, 
its extreme length being to my mind its most obvious 
flaw. We are told that it took Thomas Gray eight 
years to write the Elegy. The Rubaiyat was the life 
work of Mr. Edward Fitzgerald. The Melody I am 
credibly informed by a person present when it was 
written was the product of a single sitting, enlarged 
somewhat in its transmission on to tolerable station- 
ary, after its rare literary merit was suspected. It 
was an intolerable manuscript as it came to my hand 
in installments and its unraveling and the decipher- 
ino- of perplexing hieroglyphics required a patient 
care and an exertion in hot weather of which I be- 
lieved myself incapable, and a literary erudition I 
neither possess nor affect. Nothing less than my 
passionate love for my native hills would have im- 
pelled me to the responsible, laborious and delicate 
duty imposed by the partiality of one who, when I 
called, never hesitated nor looked back. Its frailties 
are mine — its virtues all its own. Perhaps it may be 
better to have more matter and less art than usual. 

It seems to me, and I utter it in a spirit of 
friendly appreciation and criticism, that he might 
have boiled it down, tho truth to tell and sad to say, 
he was probably too busy boiling something else 
down, it may have been a cove oyster stew" or it may 
have been something hot in a discarded oyster can 
for the way of the Serpent, the Moonshiner and the 
Other Half is past finding out. The trick of being 
singular seems natural to him along with a becoming 
strain of rareness. It is self-explanatory, leaving 
nothing more to be desired and really rendering this 
explanation, appreciation and criticism superfluous. 



48 MEDUSA 

As to the comparative merits of the Eleo;y and 
the Melody I do not purpose committing myself too 
far. I would not be, for obvious reasons, an im- 
partial judge for my love and friendship are all with 
this mute, inglorious, back woods million who laughs 
and wins. Comparisons are usually odious but may 
I be pardoned a few personal allusions and observa- 
tions since it is evidently my duty so to do. The first 
thing that struck me in the contrast is the alternate 
rhyming in the lines of the Elegy which lends eleva- 
tion at the expense of a lessened force employed in 
the more direct method of the ^lelody. In artful 
elegance, where the consummate art is admirably con- 
cealed, the Elegy has long been and will long remain 
on a pedestal by itself unapproached in the Queens 
English; but for homely human force and apt ex- 
pression it may I think be reasonably predicted that 
the Melody will stand equally distinguished and it 
may be more widely read. The interest in the Elegy 
is universal as is its theme and it will for a time at 
least attract and hold a more world-wide interest and 
pre-eminence but in compelling human thrill and 
grip, especially to the four million denizens of the 
new, flourishing and no longer retarded Appalachia, 
from Ben Ann to Loch Lomond, and the many more 
millions of American men and women who are in- 
terested in them as they are interested in nobody else 
the ^lelody will probably be unapproached by any 
narrative in the language, either poetry or prose, 
ancient or modern. 

The friends of the Melody would probably pre- 
fer that it be contrasted with a less formidable and 
popular candidate for public favor. I myself pre- 
fer the Elegy, with which I cherish an older and 
more intimate acquaintance. I am by the Elegy like 



MEDUSA 49 

the young lady I met at Williamsburg — a centre of 
hiQ;hland culture — is by Shakespeare. She said to 
me in an earnest, candid, confidential way, that went 
straight to my heart, that she believed Shakespeare 
was good for deep people, that she liked liim. I 
aT;reed with her for my impulse responded unto her 
own and beat in unison with the lovely landscape in 
which nature and much art had placed her, the 
center and chief adornment of the most attractive 
and pleasing scene imaginable. She was a school- 
teacher of many attractions, lii<>,]i culture and un- 
usual depth, a sort o' sighing, doubting, appealing, 
b clnless, pick-me-up-and-carry-me-away ephemeral 
thing altogether disassociated from the popular con- 
ception of the Boston Baked Beans variety. 

The Elegy, continuing the comparison, suggests 
ancient, vine-clad, moss-covered churches, convents 
and cathedrals, enriched and adorned by the cul- 
ture and conscience of centuries, while the Melody 
bears to us the pure, rare, fresh fragrance of wild 
honeysuckles covered with morning dew and wild 
honey and is redolent with the aroma and the deli- 
cate polka-dot tissue of the widely exploited rhodo- 
dendron with which John Cox, the unmatched 
delineator of Mountain character, with deft, classic 
fingers one sweet summer day long ago wove into a 
modest garland and lovinely and tenderly hung it 
on the graceful neck of the Uncrowned Queen of 
Buckhorn, after chastely kissing her vestal brow, all 
for the subterranean sinister purpose of "drawing her 
out" so he could put her in his book. In a sentence 
the Melody is more new, green and fresh, something 
very fresh. "The curl in the tail of the peach- 
orchard pig" in the Melody suggests the "Cock's 
shrill clarion and the echoing horn^' in the Elegy. 



50 MEDUSA 

]\[aurl Muller's "Small tin cup" is nowise superior 
to "Medusa's small slim gourd." 

Serious-minded young men and women who 
have neA'er heen about much will prefer the classic 
atmosphere and vernacular of the Elegy, while the 
gay and festive among the more mature, who are 
burning the candle of desire at both ends and hold- 
ing on desperately to the wick, will doubtless cling 
for dear life to the more complex, suggestive and 
perplexing problems dealt with lightly and yet pro- 
foundly in the torrid atmosphere of the Melody 
where the scene is placed in the very heart of nature 
and sickled o'er with the romance that makes us 
young and incline to bold adventure. If I am wrong 
in my estimate and choice, and I confess I suspect 
that T am, T have the happy consolation of knowing 
that I err in mighty fine company and have lots of 
time and abundant leisure and opportunity in which 
to ex]:)erience and confess a change of heart. To me 
the Melody stimulates like Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
The narrative recalls The Lay of The Last Minstrel 
while the listener would not be at all surprised at 
any time to see, 

Sweet Maud ^luller's hazel eyes 
Look out in their innocent surprise. 

The most severe, unfriendly and unsympathetic 
critic of Medusa will I am sure admit that she seems 
to possess to an unusual degree that elusive thing 
which no artist can catch or hold — the mystery and 
charm of the imperfect — the glimpse that stimu- 
lates the appetite for a glance. In support of this 
statement I need only recite the ol)vious fact revealed 
in this narrative that the brilliant genius of the cul- 



MEDUSA 51 

tiired John Cox paled into infatuation before the 
vokiptuous blaze of Medusa's charms. 

The spirit and brilliancy of ^Medusa's mother, a 
daughter of fair old Virginia, attracted wide atten- 
tion and elicited much favorable comment from the 
guests of the Four Seasons Hotel out beyond ]\Iid- 
dlesborough, which she frequented under the most 
favorable circumstances and environment, before it 
jDroved a financial failure and was dismantled. One 
of the British nobility, amongst many others, was 
particularly struck, in fact he was almost paralyzed, 
and pronounced her as altogether the most beauti- 
ful and winsome woman he had ever met. He was 
a battle-scarred hero of England's crimsoti wing of 
Conquest and it was truthfully and aptly said of her 
at the time that ''in her presence grim-visaged war 
had smoothed his wrinkled front." 

For the better understanding of those interested 
in this biography I may say something — not much 
— about Ben for the simple fact that he was locally 
known as ''Medusa's Man." On a recent ramble 
thru the cliffs of the Upper Cumberland I obtained 
thru- the kind offices of a mutual friend, an intro- 
duction to that notorious and dangerous character. 
He was then as now an outlawed man, a refugee 
from justice with the price of blood upon his head. 
A nod, a shake of the hand, a few words and a pass- 
ing glance was all I got and Ben, like a shadow, 
passed into still deeper shadows. I discovered him 
to be a typical Moonshiner of the progressive sort, 
quite high above and far removed from the boot- 
legger, with whom he is often confused by strange 
writers. In a sentence I may explain that no one 
ever suspected Ben of making more than he could 
himself drink. The description by the inimitable 



52 MEDUSA 

Sheridan in his School for Scandal of one of his 
characters fits Ben perhaps better than any poor 
words of mine could. "An unforgiving eye, and a 
damned, disinheriting countenance" describes Ben 
perfectly. I think this is enough about him and I 
gladly dismiss him from my thoughts for he really 
amounts to very little anyway and it is too early, in 
view of the large number of his breed, to begin pre- 
serving specimens. But Medusa was altogether dif- 
ferent, an original beauty as bright as a star. 

The Melody is remarkably free from the absurd 
provincialisms of current highland fiction, the 
authors of whom seem only to picture the rift' raff' 
of that section. This fact does not indicate any 
perversity on the part of these foreign authors. I am 
hardly l)old enough to aver that the rift' raff every- 
where are the most interesting and spectacular por- 
tion of the people. It is a fact nevertheless, but I wili 
say that they possess a monopoly of the brains. If 
you don't believe it just look at the Kentucky politi- 
cians, both parties. In the Melody is thrown tlie 
glamour of limpid poesy and wild romance over the 
commonplace details of the every day life of the most 
read and talked about, interesting and striking, 
citizen on the American continent today — the South- 
Appalachian Mountaineer who furnished the finest 
soldier to the war of 1812, and the World War as 
well. 

It heralds the dawn of a true, pure, up-to-date 
Mountain literature, disassociated from the wild, 
loose talk ; indefensible exaggeration and commercial 
spirit that has tainted the spring and polluted the 
water. The Kentucky School Book Commission will 
doubtless order its insertion in the text books for ad- 
vanced pupils in the Public Schools. I am advised 



MEDUSA 53 

that the Commission will be memorialized at one of 
their early meetings, led it may be, by my friend 
Walter Hogg, Esq., a prominent Republican leader, 
lawyer and ornament of the Breathitt bar. At Col- 
lege commencements clinging girl graduates, arrayed 
in gauze and ostrich feathers, will substitute kindred 
themes, like unto ^ledusa, for the antiquated, thread- 
bare thesis ^'Beyond the Alps lies Italy." The in- 
troduction of the Melody into the Public Schools 
would mark a reversion to the true, pure Saxon about 
which we hear so much and read so little. In it the 
school children will find history, tradition and 
strange and wild legends and thrilling adventures in 
love and war, which are the principal pursuits of 
man, intertwined, interwoven and interlaced in an 
original, attractive and popular manner and Moun- 
tain ]\lethusalehs, of the John Shell variety, who 
never saw a railroad, w411 be given a thrill and live 
their bright, young lives over again. They will be 
moved to perceive that the bottom rail has at last 
gotten on top. It will quicken the blood in their old 
arteries, be the sweet solace of their declining years 
and retard and soften their final exit from a sinful, 
wicked world. 

I know the author of this unique production well. 
He is not a school bred man in any sense of the word 
but he is exceedingly well read. He learned to read, 
and afterward to wTite, in a sort of Moonlight School 
in order to be able to express his love and admiration 
for the sublime and beautiful in scenic, art and other 
sweet stuff lying around loose in bewildering pro- 
fusion, blossoming and expanding into a thousand 
forms of abundance. He is an optimist, a thing rare 
in view of the fact that he never worked for nor be- 
longed to a corporation nor fetched nor carried for 



54 MEDUSA 

a political machine. He thinks, and boldly avers, 
that there are no hills so beautiful, no mountains 
so sublime with unmatched tints and colors, no peo- 
ple so great as his own, the Scotch-Irish-Saxon 
mountaineer, and yet he does not take even these 
very seriously, but is always praising or poking fun 
at them. He is not a graduate of Yale or Harvard or 
the Kentucky University, not even a member of the 
Filson Club, altho I understand he aspires to that 
honor, and yet I challenge any College or Club man 
to produce Medusa's superior. He is as naked as 
love's sweetest singer, Kobert Burns, the Mountain 
Song-bird of Europe, in all such superfluities. 
Robert Burns, the Scotch plow-boy, who dwells an 
arrow's flight above them all save Shakespeare. It is 
a fact personally known to myself that, like Medusa 
herself, the author of the IMelody knows such trifles 
as the Lady of The Lake, Man Was Made To Mourn 
and Childe Harold by heart ; but he is as ignorant of 
the Greek and Latin as the Greeks and Romans were 
ignorant of his ow^n unlettered highland dialect. 
Had this obscure Mountaineer possessed the educa- 
tional advantages of my nearest and dearest enemy, 
South Strong, Prosecuting Attorney of Breathitt by 
election, and King of Buckhorn by courtesy, he 
might have rivaled Shakespeare himself in felicity of 
expression. Why not? He speaks the same tongue, 
boasts the same blood, untainted by any inferior in- 
fusion. More's the pity. As it is we must take, con 
and cherish this sweet and simple annal of the 
Moonshiner, who is still suspected of being pretty ac- 
tive in back-woods Prohibition territory, and hope, 
and beg for more. I mean melodies. 

I am tempted to take the public into my confi- 
dence and reveal a secret that is founded on more 



MEDUSA 55 



than mere suspicion. It is this. The author o 
Medusa loved her himself with a love that passed all 
speech until it was too late. Such things have hap- 
pened frequently. Sparrow hawks catch game 
where eagles dai^ not fly. After Medusa was mar- 
ried to a man much beneath herself socially and m- 
tellectually the author and Medusa made a new ana 
important discovery, but as a matter of course his 
passion was hopeless for the incorrigible, unspeak- 
able Ben was an insurmountable barrier m the way. 
T ike the equallv brilliant and more unfortunate 
Lord Byron, he seems to have been inspired by the 
genius of pain but not cynicism. Otherwise, had he 
married Medusa tlie illusion might have been mar- 
red or disappeared altogether and an unprotected 
public might have been spared this rambhng narra- 
tive disclosing and discussing the sweet simplicities 
of rural life and the gradual unfolding of a vivid 
revelation of mountain hfe, character and customs 
from first hand, linking the past to the future, and 
garnishing a startling story of wild romance of sur- 
passing human interest. 

This true history of IVIedusa was written on a 
crisp, icv, shivery Easter day, under the shadows of 
Bio- Black Mountain, the highest point of land m the 
State of Kentuckv, while the year was yet young and 
awav in the top of the tallest trees the wild birds were 
.inoing and mating and watching for their prey; the 
sap\vas rising in the birch bush, the dog-woods bursty 
ino- into big bloom, destined, like the fairest flower of 
Clan-Cumberland, to be nipt so early; all m sight 
of a new-made grave on which the interrupted rays 
of an afternoon sun rested like a blessing and a 
benediction; while in the distance the yellow waves 
of the Cumberland river lashed, flashed, floated and 



56 MEDUSA 

foamed, like an Alpine torrent at its height, while 
hard by the dashing, splashing cataract, whose roar 
was her childhood's lullaby, fell thundering o'er the 
precipice and discoursed sweet music in the glade be- 
low, music less sweet than the hushed voice, never 
again, in God's country, to be elevated in song and 
story or sunk in the low, sweet, murmured cadence 
of conversation so dearly and fondly remembered 
by the life long friend then penning her epitaph. 
With sudden wing the Mountain Eagle left the crest 
of Big Black and soared to his zenith and over all his 
shadow hung, and will forever hang, so long as we 
have free and equal men and women. 

The auth'^r of Medusa tells me that this is his 
first transgression, that it will be his last. Further- 
more of my friend, at this particular time, I am not 
permitted to speak. Like Junius, the real author may 
remain forever unknown, one of the unsolved, baf- 
fling mysteries of literature. For myself I esteem it 
a singular distinction and glory enough to transmit 
it just as it came to me to an anxious, feverish world, 
to protect, defend and father the bright, limpid 
thing until its father is found. I am glad, it may be, 
to rescue so much easy and graceful elegance and 
simplicity from oblivion and give it a place in which 
to sparkle and shine. My work, a labor of love, a 
most grateful, congenial task is finished. 

Jo M. Kendall, "^^ 

219 North Main Street, 

Winchester, Ky. 



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